THE TORAH WAS SITTING IN THE WINDOW of an antique shop, upside down, naked and tattered.

It was the last thing any of the students expected to find as they walked through the cold, grey streets of the Old City in Warsaw, Poland, last February. Members of Solomon Schechter’s senior class were finishing up a week in the country, where they spent their days visiting such brutal reminders of the Holocaust as the Auschwitz Museum, Treblinka, the Krakow Ghetto and the sites of mass graves in Lupochovo forest. They had learned, with a blunt finality unavailable in any classroom, about the treatment of Jews during the Nazi occupation, and everyone’s emotions were rubbed raw.

With the end of the trip approaching, administrators and teachers decided to let the students loose for a few hours to take some time for themselves, to be alone with their thoughts, to decompress.

Which is when they found the Torah, sitting in cold neglect, a tangible symbol of the horrors they had just finished learning about. As the students passed the shop window in small groups throughout the day, each had the same thought: The torah needed rescuing

“After everything we’d learned, the idea of letting it just sit there seemed terrible,” said senior Rebecca Weintraub.

Finding the Torah was just one experience of many for the students who attended Solomon Schechter’s annual senior class trip to Poland and Israel. From Feb. 1 through March 29, 43 teenagers — out of a class of 47 — traveled overseas as part of a school program designed to not only teach them about Jewish history, but also to help them forge a stronger connection with their religious and cultural heritage. “It’s learning through immersion,” said Marc Medwed, principal of the private Jewish day school’s upper school, which is located in Hartsdale.

Students spend the first week in Poland, where they gain a visceral understanding of the Holocaust, and the way it affected peoples lives and the communities in which they lived.

“It’s a difficult week,” said Rabbi Harry Pell, a faculty member who accompanied the students on the first leg of the trip. “When we first begin discussing the program in class, students always ask if they can skip Poland. No one wants to go. But in the end, I think they’re glad they did.”

“It’s emotional and difficult,” agreed Weintraub. “But it’s important to understand what happened, and this is much more powerful than learning it in school.”

Which might have been why saving the Torah became such an important cause for the students, who approached the school’s headmaster, Dr. Elliot Spiegel, about purchasing the sacred scroll for the school.

While the shop owner claimed the Torah was about 200 years old, “we opened it and discovered it was actually from the 1930s,” said Pell. “It had been made just before the Nazis arrived. In a way, it’s even more amazing that it survived.”

Survived, yes, but just barely. The group discovered that weather, rodents and decades of disuse had wreaked havoc on the Torah, which was missing a third of its panels. None of which dissuaded the students, and a price was eventually agreed upon. The Torah was going back to Solomon Schechter. The school has plans to repair it, and then put it back into use.

After Poland, the trip moved to Israel.

“Knowing we had that to look forward to helped a lot during that first week,” said Weintraub. “When you’re on that flight, and everyone’s smiling, it’s like a weight being lifted off you. It’s cathartic.”

Once in Israel, students engage in a variety of activities, ranging from straight-forward classes and seminars to hikes in the countryside to farming to workouts with the Israeli military. They have opportunities to perform community service, and to take trips to sporting events (this year they watched a soccer match pitting Israel against England), concerts, and even folk dancing. The school encourages students to interact with the community as much as possible in order to gain a better understanding of what life is like for Jews living in Israel.

“It’s important that they have these experiences to go along with the facts so they’re better able to confront people who spread lies about Israel,” said Spiegel. “They become part of Israel’s future.”

At $6,500, the program doesn’t come cheap, and it’s not included in tuition. However, Medwed said that while some students stay behind every year, none do so as a result of the cost. The school provides financial aid and scholarship opportunities to anyone in need.

For the students, the class trip to Poland and Israel represented the highlight of their time spent at Solomon Schechter.

Spiegel pointed out that the members of each senior class come back more tightly bonded as a result of their experiences.

Weintraub agreed.

“People you never hang out with before the trip become so much closer,” said the 18 year old. “You get to know everyone so much better. Including yourself.” WJC